One
by Ytterbium
Summary: Historical, WWII. It's the day America decided the war would end, and Japan literally feels the effects of fancy new explosives. Twice.  Rated T For Imagery.


**One**

_Ytterbium_

_With help from Figy. Thanks :)_

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Kiku watched in despair as the war dragged on before his eyes. He felt a stab in his heart every time one of the soldiers gave up their time on earth- just for him. They all knew Kiku wouldn't give up until the very ground beneath his feet was nothing but ashes. His body was worn but not yet broken. What not one soul in all of Japan knew that that was literally going to happen. The hour was drawing ever nearer.

Miles away, Alfred F. Jones climbed into the airplane. As it eventually rose off the ground, he questioned the decision to follow through with this plan. _How many people are we going to kill?_ He thought to himself_, how long, how loud will Kiku scream? _Then Alfred remembered what happened four years before, in Hawaii. Burnt carcasses were flying into the air, the screams of both the dead and the dying echoed across the harbor. And Alfred's mind went back to its setting previous of hate.

8: 15.

To say Kiku screamed is an understatement. He howled for every man, woman, and child that populated his city, destroyed in one second. He wailed from the agony- sheer suffering that was what every victim felt. The effects of the nuclear weapon left him with severe radiation burns, despite his distance from the explosion. They spread rapidly across his right arm and his chest; first erupting in red, then black. The skin on his right shoulder crumbled as his mind did the same. Kiku thought he was going to die. Why didn't he? He tried to remain standing, but ended up falling onto his face before passing out.

_Is this what I wanted?_ Alfred thought, already on his way back to the base. _Why did I agree to this? _It was so unlike him, to want to kill all of those innocent people. At first it had been self defense. After Pearl Harbor, he hadn't known how else to handle the Axis Powers other than to retaliate. Things changed when his boss chose to lock up the Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Alfred felt his stance in the war change. It stopped being defense, became offense. America began killing excessively. He had consented to the use of the two atomic bombs with what could have been a grin- had it not been so out of place to smile- without even asking what the weapons would do.

8 August 1945.

Kiku woke up in the hospital two days later. Even after what was probably the most extensive treatment available, Japan still felt like he was being incinerated. _Who would do this?_ he wondered. England had no place to build a weapon with that much power, something Germany could take credit for, and Russia- well, Russia simply wasn't _evil_ that way. He was a jerk most of the time, and proud of it, but not even Ivan would torture another country to the extent Kiku had been subjected to. This only left America.

To kill so many innocent people… Japan realized that maybe he deserved the pain. He had made one mistake too many. Kiku had taken his force for granted; he knew that it would eventually run out but his people hadn't stopped believing in him. They didn't stop believing in Tojo. Japan's boss had been almost as power-hungry as Hitler, but Japan's people didn't see that. The abominations that Hitler committed provided a distraction for the world. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a dictator, and Kiku had allowed himself to get sucked in. He wondered if it would have been a better idea to have surrendered while he could still move his arms.

Now he felt it. Not in his burns, but in a simple headache. Kiku phased into sleep.

A mental blast of fire woke him up only a few hours later. _Nagasaki!_ Japan knew. _He got Nagasaki!_ This bomb had to have been fifty times more powerful than the one in Hiroshima, for Japan could barely breathe, let alone scream out in anguish. Bloody fireworks exploded, destroying a body, a city, a spirit. He could smell the skin disintegrating from his back. Unable to think, Kiku was crying tumultuously, his entire body convulsing, tears flowing like rivers; his voice failed him. When at last the nation could force air into sounds, he did not scream for his people. This time he screamed for himself. He called out to America to please make the pain stop, he apologized to every person he even might have hurt, he begged for surrender, for forgiveness, all at once.

Unfortunately, the horror and pain were not nearly over, and images of carnage bombarded him. At first there was only blood. Blood and severed hands, feet, heads, everywhere. Broken, twisted bodies scattered on the ruins of buildings. The suffering of these people added to his total pain. Kiku couldn't believe that there was more to see; more pictures painted by this brush of destruction. Slowly, Kiku's view turned toward the center of his city, where he saw more than pictures of decimated limbs. He saw children playing in the street turn into shadows on the ground. Whole buildings full of people instantly disappear. There was no blood here, not at the center of the explosion. There were no screams, not even the slightest look of terror, not even of questioning. These people had not felt a thing.

And finally, Kiku's tortured body allowed him to fall out of consciousness.

Somewhere over the Pacific, Alfred heard his friend-turned-enemy scream. He heard every person in Nagasaki, in Hiroshima, the other cities America had firebombed. He heard the survivors, those lucky few, joining in the chorus of weeping.

Alfred swiveled his view to look behind him, and saw the inferno envelop his vision. Without knowing it, a tear ran down Alfred's cheek.

But only one.


End file.
